Safety at the Rose City Opener

colin_koehler

colin_koehler

Great SCOTT!
Last year at the Rose City Opener we had lots of people do some strange and dangerous stuff on Saturday and this resulted in the veins in Gary Bockman's head coming close to the brink of exploding during the drivers meeting, not mention the corners workers that felt unsafe doing their jobs.

So, for the sake of Mr. Bockman's blood pressure, the sake of our ears and most importantly, the sake of our workers and officials I just wanted to say....

Let's remember that this is the first race weekend. It's been a long, wet winter and we all have some rust to shake off. Please spread the word of safety and caution to your co-drivers and let's keep our eyes up for those yellow flags and safety vehicles.

Here's to a fun and safe race opener. See you all there. :biggrin:
 
Awesome! Yes, this is my main message for the weekend at the meetings. Especially when things get hot & heavy in Qualifying, please don't forget that back it way down when there's a yellow flag out. If you catch a yellow in Quali, the lap's toast anyway. The workers who are out there in harm's way (or the dead-stick driver) will thank you!

Thanks Colin!
 
Last edited:
Another thing for every driver to remember this weekend is that it has been very, very wet this winter. We are several inches ahead of normal for this part of the year. The pavement is your friend. Stay on it. Get off in the soft stuff and we may never see you again. We might leave your car there to help solidify the swamp. Don't want to see anyone impersonate a U boat and submerge out there someplace.
 
Yeah, don't be U-108. Car #108 landed in the big puddle drivers right at turn 4 a while back. While trying to get out, he had rooster tails both fore and aft as he tried to rock it out. By the time we got to him with the tow truck, the water was coming into the car over the door sill. Would have been funnier still if Roooster hadn't had to wade out to hook up the wrecker cable to pull him out. What a mess.
 
All open wheel drivers,

Let's have a safe weekend. Our cars will disappear in the wet stuff and the mud tends to tear body parts off.

Tim Bland
84 Anson SA4
 
Another thing to remember - when we are under a full course yellow, make a reasonable effort to catch the pace car/car in front of you, while obviously respecting the workers and the incident(s). It makes life a lot easier for the workers and those stranded on the track if everyone is under control of the pace car. At the enduro, there was some serious gaps in the field, due to people tooling down the front straight at 50MPH, when the incident was at T5. It's bad enough when the workers have to be aware of one pack, under the control of the pace car, but an entirely different thing when there are three or four packs.

As they say, just my $0.02, and worth almost every penny ...

Dan
#102
 
Good perspective Dan.

Also know that when the field is under a full course caution, the area of the incident will have a 'waving' yellow flag to note the difference. There may be more than one, so heads up.

PIR, like any other track, gets upset when we foul up their flora, fauna, and other bits. They like to charge money for fixing that stuff. They like to charge the operating club money for fixing that stuff.

The clubs do NOT like to charge money to the drivers for fixing things... but they must.

It's very true that when the wheels leave the pavement that the car will actually go faster. But being that fast doesn't finish well.
 
blandt said:
All open wheel drivers,

Let's have a safe weekend. Our cars will disappear in the wet stuff and the mud tends to tear body parts off.

Tim Bland
84 Anson SA4
Click to expand...

Not to mention getting all that mud out of your suit and shoes is a real pain.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top